Blogorium Review: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

 There's supposed to be such a thing as a "law of diminishing returns"; if a hit movie continues to produce sequels, they rarely if ever are as good as the first film. From the eleven-and-a-half Friday the 13ths to the Die Hard and Indiana Jones and Alien quadrilogies all the way back to the Thin Man films, it's a dicey proposition to keep going. Even in the rare cases where a Godfather Part II or Evil Dead 2 manage to match the original, the third film is imperfect. The James Bond films have lows that match their highs, and it tends to happen that the "diminishing returns" play out with each successive 007.

 I bring this up because this is the fourth Mission: Impossible film, and it's a toss up as to whether Ghost Protocol or M:I:III are the best entries yet. You could really argue either way, but it's strange to think that the third and fourth Mission: Impossible films are not only that much better than the first two films, but better than a lot of action cinema in the last decade. This comes from a fan of the Bourne films, the Jason Statham cycle (Transporter/Crank/Death Race/etc), the Sherlock Holmes buddy-cop reinvention, The Expendables, Rambo, Predators, and yes, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. While these are all fun in their own right, I'm still prepared to take Ghost Protocol over them right now.

 Call me a prisoner of the moment, but it's rare to see a film that doesn't mind being action packed and funny without one undermining the other. It's also nice to see that Brad Bird transferred the breathless action from The Incredibles to the real world, in what is (reported to be, anyway) as realistically as possible. Tom Cruise was dangling from the walls of the world's tallest building in Dubai, although how or why any insurance company would allow that is beyond me.

 Okay, we're four paragraphs in, so let's explain what happens in Ghost Protocol: Ethan Hunt (Cruise) has been cooling his heels in a Russian prison for a few years, following the death of his wife Julia (played by Michelle Monaghan in M:I:III), when he's released by IMF agents Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg, returning from M:I:III). The agency assigns the team the mission of breaking into the Kremlin in order to find some evidence of the mysterious "Cobalt," a terrorist who may have a nuclear device. "Cobalt" has successfully been erasing all evidence of his existence, and when Hunt is caught in an explosion while trying to escape from the Kremlin, IMF and the United States are implicated in an assault on Russia. Hunt is informed by the IMF Secretary (?) (Tom Wilkinson) that the President is issuing "Ghost Protocol," and that the team will now be considered "enemies of the State" unless they can covertly intercept "Cobalt," nuclear expert Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist) before he begins a new world war. Hunt, Carter, and Dunn are joined by William Brandt (Jeremy Renner), an analyst who may be more than meets the eye, but their resources (and time) are limited. Oh, and the Russian police agent (Vladimir Mashkov) is hot on their tail.

 One of the things I enjoy so much about Ghost Protocol is the way that nothing goes according to plan: from the opening, where Lost's Josh Holloway is "Estevez'ed" because his face recognition software warns him an assassin (Léa Seydoux) is coming while she's pulling her gun out. He's distracted and killed, so Carter and Dunn's first mission is botched, necessitating Hunt's release. Ethan won't just leave the prison when Benji unlocks the cell doors by remote: he insists that the person releasing him (he doesn't know it's Benji, which is a nice conceit between what the audience knows and what the characters know) also open the door for Bogdan (Miraj Grbic), causing an otherwise smooth escape plan into a full fledged prison riot.

 And it just keeps going. Little things like the mission brief not self destructing to the mask maker jamming to accidentally killing a key informant to sticky gloves that don't stick keep compounding and making life harder and harder for the team. They can't do anything about it, so they have to improvise, grin, and bear it. So the building in Dubai they need to control the elevators in has a room you can only get into from the outside - Ethan can use the stick gloves to break in so Benji can hack it. They have 30 minutes before the assassin arrives to sell the launch codes to Winstrom (Samuli Edelmann), and one of the spider-man-like gloves stop working halfway up. It's a good thing Ethan was rock-climbing in M:I II.

 This works in Ghost Protocol because it adds serious tension to the film. They manage to be too late, make silly mistakes, and only sometimes manage to succeed by the skin of their teeth. It's less of the "oh shit, they have his wife" from M:I:III and more of "there's no back up coming if you screw this up" as is evident when Wilkinson's secretary is killed and Renner is forced to join the ragtag group. He doesn't have anywhere else to go now.

 While Pegg is a consistent source of laughs in the film, Renner also brings in some much needed levity as an IMF analyst befuddled by the half-baked desperation ploys during the film. His "secret" isn't actually all that important, especially when one considers the coda for the film (for which I do recommend you catch up with characters from M:I:III), but it does explain how Hunt knows he's more than just a number cruncher. Ethan pulls a gun on Brandt and isn't surprised at all when he's promptly disarmed.

 The rumor was that Renner was brought in to continue the series after Ghost Protocol, but then Cruise had so much fun making the film that they may continue with both of them. That's fine with me, because if we're not going with the Maggie Q / Johnathan Rhys Meyers iteration of the team (Ving Rhames' absence from Ghost Protocol is explained without suggesting he's out of the series), I could watch more Mission: Impossible films with this lineup. Cruise, Patton, Pegg, and Renner have great chemistry and work together as a (dysfunctional) team. Like the last film, each member serves more than one purpose and nobody feels superfluous, even if some of the set pieces sometimes do.

 Which brings me to the weaknesses of Ghost Protocol, and there are a few: Benji and Brandt are involved in an infiltration scheme reminiscent of the "sensor room" in the first film, but instead of suspenseful it's joke-y and ultimately proves to be another red herring. Hunt's showdown with Hendricks in an (admittedly cool looking) elevated car port is anticlimactic, but that may be due to the fact that Nyqvist is stuck playing a character that barely figures into the movie. He doesn't say much, he's mostly in the background, and the threat he poses is globally more dangerous but doesn't have the same emotional resonance as Philip Seymour Hoffman's Owen Davian. He doesn't register much at all, and certainly doesn't have the impact of Seydoux's Sabine Moreau, a much smaller character.

 In fact, it's entirely possible to play out Ghost Protocol without a "main" villain. The film is more or less the disavowed IMF team racing against the clock to stop a missile from launching, and while their attempts to stop "Cobalt" / Hendricks from getting to the point he can do that are entertaining, I don't know that his presence is even necessary. Like the Russian police who show up at inopportune times for Ethan, Hendricks is more effective as an abstract threat. There's one scene that really gives Nyqvist anything to do, and while it's a clever closer to a great chase scene, that's about all that the moment amounts to.

 Still, I highly recommend Ghost Protocol, which is consistently entertaining despite these flaws. To be honest, I didn't really notice them while I was watching the film - it was only in retrospect that it occurred to me that some elements of the film (including a character played by Slumdog Millionaire's Anil Kapoor introduced in the third act) were maybe superfluous. It never feels superfluous when you're watching the film: the script by André Nemec and Josh Applebaum and Brad Bird's direction keep you swept up in the race to stop nuclear war. Tom Cruise is again hard at work demonstrating why he's so essential to this series. He's a little bit older than he was last time and things are a little harder for Ethan Hunt to bounce back from, but he's still climbing up the side of buildings to entertain us.

 If this is any indicator of what J.J. Abrams and Tom Cruise (as producers) want to keep bringing to the Mission: Impossible series, it's entirely possible that "diminishing returns" aren't on the horizon as they push towards a fifth film. There's certainly enough that happens in the last five minutes of Ghost Protocol to imply there's more story to be told, so keep the quality level high and I'll be back for more.

Retro Review: Mission: Impossible: III

 Why am I writing a "Retro Review" of a movie that's barely six years old? The reason is twofold:

 1. I hadn't seen Mission: Impossible: III (actual title) since it first arrived on home video.

 2. I had recently watched Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, which is the closest thing to a "direct sequel" that you're going to find in the series, and while I had a comfortable grasp of the characters who appeared or were mentioned, watching that film really made me want to revisit the previous entry.

 The Cap'n had not planned on seeing Mission: Impossible: III, the directorial debut of J.J. Abrams (Lost, Felicity), because of my lukewarm feelings about the first two M:I films. While having no real connection to the show, I had seen Brian DePalma's Mission: Impossible in high school and generally liked it but was totally unimpressed with John Woo's Mission: Impossible II, a hollow and pointless exercise in slow motion action and motorcycle-fu. The latter held sway in my mind over the former, so there didn't seem to be much of a point watching the third film in a series I wasn't that invested in.

 It wasn't until I started hearing good things about the sequel, combined with my affinity for Dinosaur Island that I thought I'd give it a shot. Good call, it turns out.

 People say that Mission: Impossible: III is a feature length version of Abrams' spy series Alias. I can't confirm or deny that, as I've never seen Alias. I would imagine it has something to do with the way the film begins: dropping the audience in the middle of a tense stand-off between Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), where the life of Julia (Michelle Monaghan) rest on whether Hunt delivered something called The Rabbit's Foot to Davian or not. We have little to no context, only that the typically nonplussed Hunt is helpless to stop Davian from killing Julia (wife? girlfriend? fellow IMF agent?) and that nothing he's promising seems to sway his captor. The film then launches into opening credits and we begin M:I:III in earnest.

 The "drop you in the middle of the narrative without context" is something that I associate with Abrams, mostly through Lost, but one could argue that Star Trek pulls a similar narrative conceit by opening with the arrival of Nero before we even know what Federation ship we're seeing him destroy. It's a refreshing break from the action set pieces from the first film (entire team wiped out) and the second (extreme rock climbing) that focuses on character over mimicking the 007 series. It's not the only way that Abrams and screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman improve on the M:I franchise.

 From my recollection, the first two Mission: Impossible films were largely the Tom Cruise show, featuring "the team," of which I can only recall Ving Rhames being a constant. Other people showed up to betray Ethan Hunt or to be (I love this term) "Estevez'ed". M:I:III, on the other hand, centers in on the concept that the team is important and that Ethan might lead the group, but he needs everybody to carry out the mission (should he choose to accept it). Unlike the first two films, I can remember every part of the IMF team in III: Ving Rhames returns as Luther, Johnathan Rhys-Meyers is Duncan, Maggie Q is Zhen, and in a cameo appearance, Simon Pegg enters the series as Benji. Instead of having one assigned "role," everybody works as a unit to ensure that covert operations like invading Vatican City go off smoothly. It's a refreshing break from the "hero with some window dressing" I remembered  (this also applies to Ghost Protocol, but I'll get to that in a few days).

 This is not to say that there isn't some familiarity: Abrams sneaks in his "good luck charm" Greg Grunberg early in the film during Ethan and Julia's engagement (?) party, and Felicity herself, Keri Russell, has the distinction of being the "pupil of Hunt who gets captured and introduces the lethal threat," a bomb inside your head, that kicks off the film. Hoffman is a merciless arms dealer as Davian, unafraid of Hunt even in the face of death, promising to punish him and anyone he cares about for having the gall to catch him. The Rabbit's Foot, a MacGuffin to say the least, is the focus of everybody's attention, from Hunt's team to Davian to Director Brassel (Laurence Fishburne) and deputy director Musgrave (Billy Crudup), but Agent Lindsey Farris (Russell) alerts Ethan that a mole in IMF is working for the other side.

 All of this comes at a fast and furious pace, and the film never feels like two hours. The action is easy to follow (quite a feat considering that the Bourne Supremacy ushered in "shaky cam" two years before) and the stunts are mostly practical. Even a rooftop leap in Shanghai that was mostly green-screen involved Cruise taking a considerable fall before being mapped onto the background. The film is more accomplished, story-wise, than Star Trek, with actual stakes being introduced when Hunt loses Ferris and then (we think) Julia, but there's a similar breezy charm in the middle of the film and at the end that keeps things from being too dour.

 In particular, I like to point out the scene where Hunt (disguised at Davian) and Zhen drop off a crucial briefcase to Luther. The way that Hoffman delivers the line "what's up?" still makes me chuckle, almost as much as Monaghan's reaction to what IMF is an acronym for. Actually, in general I also would like to point out that despite the fact everybody had it in for Tom Cruise around that time, he's still essential to the success of the M:I films and handles it admirably.

 Watching the film again, I was surprised how caught up I was all over again, even as the twists and turns of M:I:III started coming back. It's a very entertaining action film in a way that I don't remember the first or second film being, and because of that I welcomed Brad Bird's live action debut with Ghost Protocol. I'm glad I did, but I'll get to that later. It is fair that you don't have to see M:I:III again to enjoy Ghost Protocol, but the end of the fourth film benefits greatly from being up to speed on who's who in the third film.

Blogorium Review: Jackass 3.5

 As some of you may remember, I reviewed Jackass 3 nearly two months ago, and the consensus was that the prank and stunt heavy troupe of daredevils were going out with a bang. Their desire to do bodily injury was on the wane, and some of the Jackass guys were more hesitant to go crazy. Even harder to watch was how much longer it took them to get up after bad landings. The film closed out with a montage of Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Chris Pontius, Steve-O, Wee Man, Preston Lacy, and the rest as children, in their first appearance on the show, and during the filming of Jackass 3. It felt like a fitting closing to the series from director Jeff Tremaine, with the small caveat that they filmed a LOT more footage than the film contained.

 How much more footage? Well, if you took Jackass 3 and Jackass 3.5's runtimes, edited out the connective tissue of the latter, you'd still have nearly two-and-a-half hours, plus another fifteen minutes of scenes deleted from 3.5. The good news for Jackass fans is that none of 3.5 feels tacked on, or superfluous. You could easily switch out vignettes from the theatrical release to the home video sequel (and vice versa) and be just as entertained.

  The structure is a little different from previous Jackass films: instead of transitioning from bit to bit, there are a series of interview segments with the cast (many of which appear to be in London) that provide context for why footage didn't make it into Jackass 3. It gives parts of the film more of a documentary / making of feel, although as the interviews increasingly become excuses for more pranks (especially between Bam Margera and Ryan Dunn). There's more fun with the Phantom camera's high speed frame rate, more mountain horseplay with the Dudesons, a great fake-out prank involving a fake "human bowling ball" that's actually an excuse for Johnny Knoxville to use a remote controlled helicopter to shoot paintballs at them. We also see some of the aftermath of failed sketches, like the Blowback (an attempt to clothesline a pole with a long wooden board), some more "painted man" gags, and at least one segment I couldn't believe didn't make it into Jackass 3. Let's just say it involves a wind-up metal rat, an electric mouse trap, and Steve-O's testicles.

There's a greater sense of fun in 3.5; the laughs are heartier, the sense of glee that accompanies each stupid stunt (and many of their failed outcomes) brings back some of the juvenile glee of the TV show and the first two films. Well, for everyone except Brandon Novak: in Jackass 3, it seemed like he was just hanging around for Margera to punch during a "Rocky." In 3.5, it's clear he was involved in a few stunts (one involving riding a toilet down a ramp and the other involving belt sander "skates") that end... badly. For the suffering Novak endured, I'm a little surprised none of his bits made it into the theatrical release.

Jackass 3.5 also seems to be a reaction to the "these guys are getting old" reviews that figured into the best reviews (the film does, by the way, have a "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes). After a hesitant start from Steve-O to let an alligator snapping turtle to bite into his posterior, the boys open up for a number of ridiculous, dangerous, and silly stunts. Steve-O's excitement to run down a wooden beam surrounded by fire (while dodging flaming medicine balls) is a marked contrast to the "Why do I have to be Steve-O?" in Jackass 3. To counterpoint the last film, Tremaine opens 3.5 with the boys racing somewhere in France from the train station to a crowd of cheering fans. He closes the film with another montage of footage from the film, but set to "Young At Heart," a rebuttal to the suggestion that the Jackass crew are in any way over the hill.

 It almost seems silly putting this disclaimer so late in the review, but Jackass 3.5 is really only going to appeal to someone predisposed to enjoy the series to this point. If you didn't like it already, I don't know how this would turn you around. Fans, on the other hand, will be happy to know that Jackass 3.5's 81 minute running time is more robust than Jackass 2.5, which felt like a collection of leftover footage. While it sometimes straddles the line between full-fledged extension of Jackass 3 and an extended "making of" documentary, Jackass 3.5 never feels like a "lesser than" entry. If you're looking for more trashy fun, or just to sate your desire for comical human suffering, look no further.

Blogorium Review: Jackass 3

There is a moment in Jackass 3 (nee 3-D) when, faced with a Tee-Ball to the groin, the question is asked "Ohhhh, why do I have to be Steve-O?", which may be the prevailing theme of this fourth entry* into the Jackass saga. The Jackass crew isn't getting any younger, and the impending damage to their bodies weighs heavier on their minds than in previous outings, both televised and theatrical: more than a few stunts begin with hesitation from members about to do something stupid / decidedly dangerous, and it takes a little bit longer to bounce back from being rammed by buffalo, being kicked in the face by a football, or the aforementioned tee-ball to the junk.

Which is not to say that there isn't still a sense of relish to the proceedings: Johnny Knoxville still cackles with glee when a giant hand smacks unknowing visitors during "High Five." He seems especially pleased that "Danger" Ehren would actually be dumb enough to bring a tray full of soup into the room (and one can actually see him looking around suspiciously with the tray before he gets slammed). Steve-O seems to be having much more fun with "Beehive Tetherball" than Dave England is, in part because the former knows that panicking will only attract more of the Africanized colony. Everyone is on board with hopping around behind a plane engine, or being propelled by bungee rope off a ramp into a flimsy swimming pool (on roller skates, skateboards, boogie boards, and a wheelbarrow), and the sense of maniacal glee that comes with the Super Glue games is infectious.

While many are quick to point to Jackass as being the decline of western civilization on celluloid, I'm going to stick with the John Waters approach that they're carrying the torch of "bad taste" into the next generation. The Cap'n freely admits that Jackass is an acquired tastes, and that for most of you, any interest in today's post ended when you saw the title. Fair enough. It makes me laugh (sometimes causing people to check out what exactly I'm howling at), rarely disappoints, and periodically grosses me out. And while Jackass 3 doesn't go quite as far as the first film did on that count (I'm looking at you, "Yellow Snowcone"), there are a couple gag-out-loud moments in the film. One involves a model train set that you're better off turning away from, and the other involves Preston Lacy exercising in a suit designed to capture his sweat into a cup. You can guess where it goes from there.

Where I'd point out that Jackass is different from other nihilistic, mean-spirited, prank style "guerilla" films like Bumfights is in the sense of fraternity between the gang. Even when subjected to pain, or being the butt of someone else's practical joke, the boys are quick with a smile or to congratulate the prank-er. Lacy goes out of his way to shake the hand of the punt kicker that nails a football into his face; Steve-O, covered in feces after the "Poo Cocktail Supreme" opts to chase Johnny Knoxville and give him a hug; even Bam Margera, faced with his worst fear after falling into a pit with snakes, gives a fist bump to the snake trainer that dumped them on his head. The camaraderie between the Jackass guys keeps spirits high, even when the stunts are cruel; "Danger" Ehren's "Lamborghini Tooth Pull" wouldn't be nearly as palatable if he wasn't so excited at the prospect of doing it.

Jackass 3 looks better (by far) than any previous incarnation, largely because director Jeff Tremaine shot on high definition Phantom cameras with 3-D in mind. I can see where most of the 3-D was supposed to be, but the DVD that came from Netflix was strictly 2-Dimensional. In addition to 3-D trickery, Tremaine also used the Phantom for its high frame rate, allowing for super-clear, super-slo-mo photography, which figures prominently into the opening and closing of the film, allowing audiences to see every blow with crystal clarity (it also makes a recurring segment called "The Rocky" worthwhile).

Like Jackasses before it, the film has its share of cameos: Minnesota Vikings player Jared Allen takes Knoxville down while referee Sean William Scott winces; Spike Jonze returns for another round of "Old Lady" jokes; Will the Farter pops a balloon in Steve-O's ass from, well you can guess; singer/songwriter Will Oldham plays an animal trainer to Chris Pontius' wild gorilla to scare Phil and April Margera; Mike Judge gets back in the action by providing the voices of Beavis and Butt-Head, who introduce the film and explain the wonders of 3-D. Even Finland's The Dudeson's get involved with the boys for tree-related mayhem.

Also like the other Jackass films, there are bits that work and bits that don't: I've mentioned a number of the better gags (and intentionally left out a few really good ones) but many of the "on the street" pranks played unsuspecting folks just don't play like they used to. Jason "Wee Man" Acuña is part of a bar fight designed around "little people"; Knoxville dresses up as an old man and makes out with his "granddaughter" on a public street, and also crashes through a scooter dealership before "stealing" one of the vehicles. At this point the segments are less effective than they used to be, and tend to drag the film down from the wilder, "conceptual" stunts or endangerment. The April and Phil "gorilla" prank is a total bust, as is a much longer than it needed to be segment built around Bam peeing on everyone.

While Jackass 3.5 looms, I somehow doubt there's going to be a Jackass 4; the film certainly is the product of guys who aren't as wild as they used to be, who are far more aware of the mayhem they subject their bodies to. The film closes out on a montage during the credits of each member of the team as a child, in their first appearance on the show, and now, and it's amazing to see how young they were when Jackass premiered on MTV at the turn of the century. Set to Weezer's "Memories," which features the cast singing along, it feels like a fitting close to the series. They might not be as reckless as they were, but you can't blame the Jackass crew for giving it their best on the way out.





* Fourth including Jackass 2.5, and to be followed by Jackass 3.5, the fifth chapter. If we're including the show, then who knows what 3 qualifies as.